To enter Morocco by ferry with a campervan and pets in tow, you’ll need to have a few essential documents in hand. In this article we share our experience, hoping it helps speed up the paperwork so you can enjoy the trip with total peace of mind!

Documents

Morocco requires foreign visitors to hold a passport valid for at least six months from the date of entry into the country. This means that if your passport’s expiry date is coming up, you’ll need to renew it before leaving. The passport must also have at least one blank page for the entry visa and control stamps.

A tourist entry visa isn’t required for Italian citizens, who can stay in the country for 90 days without one.

In general, entering Morocco by ferry is similar to entering by plane, with a few differences in the checking procedure, since customs checks are carried out either on board the ferry or once you’ve arrived, and also involve scanning the vehicle.

Pets

As for pets, since Morocco is outside the European Union, there are a few rules to follow.

In brief

• An identifying microchip for the animal
• A pet passport, obtained alongside the rabies vaccination
• A rabies antibody titration test at specialised centres
• A health certificate and export document

First of all, your pet must be identified with a microchip and have an EU pet passport containing information on vaccinations and other veterinary treatments.

Also, it must be vaccinated against rabies and have a valid rabies vaccination certificate.

The rabies antibody titration test is the single most important document of all, since it will allow you to bring your pets back into Europe. Without this document, your pet will be put into quarantine. To get the titration done, your vet needs to draw a blood sample, which is then sent to an authorised laboratory. The results are sent by email. We relied on the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe)  .

Warning: remember to have the details of the test written into section VI of the passport (we didn’t know this, and it cost us a rough quarter of an hour).

Entering Morocco

Before you can enter Morocco you need to have a vet visit to obtain a health certificate, valid for 10 days.

Spain-Morocco Crossing

If, like us, you’re leaving from Algeciras in Spain, you can go to Brulina in Palmones y Los Barrios  , booking in advance.

Cost: 30 euros per animal.

Once this document has been issued, you’ll need to go to the Poste d’inspection frontalier (PIF) located at the port. It’s an office dedicated (here’s here  the location) to checking these documents, where they’ll issue you another document to show once you arrive in Morocco. We strongly recommend handling all these procedures a little in advance.

During the crossing, which takes a couple of hours, pets can either stay in the campervan or be brought out onto the deck, as long as they stay in areas without carpeting. Given the short duration, we preferred to leave them peacefully in the vehicle.

Leaving Morocco

Before leaving the country to head back to Europe, you need to go to the ONSSA veterinary office to get the export documents for your pets. The procedure isn’t quick, since you need to:

1. Go to the ONSSA office with:
   • Your pets’ passports
   • The export documents obtained from the PIF in Spain
2. You’ll be given documents to have filled in by a private vet
3. Go back to the ONSSA office to finalise the paperwork

Once you have these documents, you’ll have 10 days to leave the country with peace of mind!

Here are the coordinates of the ONSSA offices depending on your port of return:

• Tangier  : for the Tangier-Spain crossing
• Tétouan  : for the crossing from Ceuta

There are other offices too, such as the one in Chefchaouen  , which we found closed.

As for the vet, we went to the Clinique Vétérinaire Youssef  in Tangier.

Cost: 20 euros per animal.

Useful Information and Tips

Morocco has plenty of stray dogs, which is why we recommend keeping your pet on a leash. As a rule, people there are afraid of dogs, so it’s worth considering visiting crowded places while leaving your pet in the campervan or at accommodation.

In general, spring and autumn are the best times to travel through Morocco with a pet, since temperatures aren’t too high (during summer, especially near the desert, temperatures can reach 52 degrees).

If you’re planning to visit the areas near Merzouga and its impressive sand dunes in spring, we recommend looking for a campsite with palm trees: as early as the start of April, daytime temperatures in this region already top 30-35°C!

By Campervan

If you’re planning to enter Morocco with your vehicle, there are no particular restrictions. The documents you need are:

• Driving licence
• Vehicle registration document
• Insurance valid for Morocco too (the Green Card  )

We rely on Camper Sereno  , which issues the insurance extension for Morocco free of charge. If your insurance company doesn’t offer this extension, you can take out insurance at the port when you arrive in Morocco.

Both when disembarking and before boarding the ferry to head back to Europe, your vehicle will be checked with an X-ray scanner. When you enter the country you’ll be given a temporary admission form, valid for 6 months, which you need to keep very carefully since you’ll need it to leave!

We recommend checking that the licence plate and all the details match the real ones.

Ferry and Schedule

We set off with our vehicle from Algeciras, heading to Tanger Med.

You can’t book a specific departure time. There are about 8 departures a day, and you just need to arrive at boarding an hour and a half early. At the port, passports are checked and official tickets are issued, along with a document to keep for the return trip. On board the ferry your passport is checked again and you’re handed the fiche de police: a form where you need to write your personal details, where you’re coming from, and your destination.

Useful Tips

Speed limits are well signposted and must be respected. There are numerous checkpoints across the country, so make sure to stop and only move on when signalled by the gendarme.

Fixed and mobile speed cameras aren’t signposted. For fixed cameras, you can check whether you’ve picked up any fines, which you’ll pay when leaving the country, by registering at this link  . As for fines from mobile speed cameras, these are paid on the spot at the first checkpoint. The price is 150 dh (€15), payable only in cash.

How Much Does It Cost

The round-trip ticket price for two people and a 5.40m van without a trailer was 300 euros (an open ticket valid for a year). Had we chosen Ceuta as our destination we’d have paid around 40/50 euros less, but customs checks take longer there, and we preferred this route so we could handle them on board and speed things up. Our pets didn’t pay any extra fee.

The agency we went with was Viajes Normandie  in Palmones y Los Barrios. They’re very friendly, the cheapest around, and they even give you a bottle of wine and a pack of biscuits! As an added service, they’ll also let you leave your drone in storage for free!